1) Question #7 on page 59 (Chapter 4) of SC Strategy guide

We were dismayed to learn that our neighbours were untidy, disagreeable , and they were uninterested to make new friends.

The corrected sentence,as per the guide,is given as

We were dismayed to learn that our neighbours were untidy, disagreeable , and uninterested in making new friends.

What if I correct the sentence as following -

We were dismayed to learn that our neighbours were untidy, disagreeable, and that they were uninterested to make new friends.

Is my sentence still correct?.

2)Question #13

Voters want to elect a president who genuinely cares about health care, the environment, the traveils of ordinery men and women, has the experience,wisdom and strength of character required for the job.

Corrected sentence is -
Voters want to elect a president who genuinely cares about health care, the environment, and the traveils of ordinery men and women, and who has has the experience,wisdom,and strength of character required for the job.


what if i correct the sentence as

Voters want to elect a president who genuinely cares about health care, the environment, and the traveils of ordinery men and women, and has the experience,wisdom and, strength of character required for the job.

Is this correct as well?..
In other words,Is the "who" after comma mandatory?.

It is incorrect.
The use of that after and disturbs parallelism

We were dismayed to learn that our neighbours were untidy, disagreeable, and that they were uninterested to make new friends.






"Who" is required to maintain parallelism.


Elucidating ...
Lets break the sentence ...

Voters want to elect a president

who genuinely cares about health care, the environment,and the travails of ordinary men and women, and
who has the experience,wisdom,and strength of character required for the job

Each of the part can use the common subject while maintaining parallelism.

If "who" were to be removed from the latter half, it would not be able to share the subject.

Voters want to elect a president (who) has the experience,wisdom,and strength of character required for ....
Hence "who" is required.

Hope this is of some help.

Thanks a lot pritesh. Couple of some doubts though.



I think you were spot on here.Now i understand why my version was incorrect.

A related doubt -
CAnt help thinking what would have been if we had an extra
"and" infront of disagreeable.

In that case, the sentence would be -


We were dismayed to learn
[that our neighbours were untidy and disagreeable,] and [that they were uninterested to make new friends.]

IF we split based on the parallelism marker "and", we can read the two phrases as -

We were dismayed to learn that our neighbours were untidy and disagreeable.
&
We were dismayed to learn that our neighbours were uninterested to make new friends.

Because the first "and" is abscent , we cant split like this.and you were right that we cannot add an extra "that".

Am i correct?.



Still not sure, why the 2nd part is not able to share the subject if we remove "who" in the latter part.

Voters want to elect a president who
[genuinely cares about health care, the environment,and the travails of ordinary men and women,] and
[has the experience,wisdom,and strength of character required for the job].

Is this a valid split?.
Is it mandatory to have "who" infront of each part?.

This is how I could break it. Is it the correct way to approach such questions?

Thanks,
Gitesh

I think the comments have been spot on. Ratheesh, you are right that an additional “and” in #7 would put a break in the parallel structure that would not just allow, but actually necessitate an additional “that.” However, the comma in the original creates a list that must be continued with another adjective.

In #13, the second “who” reduces ambiguity. Without it, it takes some work to divine the author’s meaning. Is this next part an addition to the list, or a trait of the desired president, or perhaps another verb attached to voters? Sure, “voters . .. has” is incorrect, but do you see how much work we have to do at this point to follow the meaning? In a simpler sentence: “I want a president who cares about education and has nice hair,” there is less room for confusion, and we might safely choose to omit the additional “who.”

_________________
Dmitry Farber
Manhattan GMAT Instructor